Tag: opinion

  • Tax Policy Belongs in Liberal Arts Curriculum (opinion)

    Tax Policy Belongs in Liberal Arts Curriculum (opinion)

    As congressional Republicans scratched and clawed to pass President Trump’s signature policy effort, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—a sprawling, tax-heavy package celebrated as much for its branding as for its contents—it is notable how few people could explain what exactly was in it. Tax cuts for some, probably. A Social Security bonus, maybe. A gutting of public benefits, almost certainly. What is clear, though, is that the bill’s complexity was always in service of its politics: When no one understands tax policy, it’s much easier to sell whatever story you want.

    That confusion is exactly why we should be teaching tax policy more broadly—not just in sparsely attended law school classes and accounting departments, but in general education curricula and first-year seminars. Tax isn’t just a technical rule-following subject; it’s a civic one. Tax policy shapes everything from fairness and inequality to the functional shape of the state itself. Yet, most students will graduate college without ever being asked to consider what tax is for—much less whom it helps, whom it harms and why it remains so easy to obscure.

    That is precisely the starting point for the course I designed at Drexel University, Introduction to Tax Theory and Policy, which I teach in our innovative undergraduate law major, housed at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law. It’s not a course for aspiring tax attorneys, prospective C.P.A.s or Excel mavens—few of my students intend to practice tax law. They’re interested in criminal or family law, or they’re business majors, future social workers, engineers or undecided second-years. But they’re all taxpayers—and that’s the relevant bit.

    Courses like mine aim to democratize access to legal and policy tools so that all students, irrespective of their major, can become more informed and empowered participants in civic life. In class, we don’t parse tax rates or calculate deductions. No calculators are required, and at no point is anyone expected to consider the straight-line depreciation of an apartment complex. We ask why the system is built the way it is, and we talk about the power that it reflects and protects. We talk about values: what kinds of behavior the tax code encourages or punishes. We talk about trust and legitimacy: What happens when people believe the system is rigged, and what if they’re right? In short, we treat tax not as a set of arcane rules and rates to memorize, but as a lens through which we can better understand the power structures we live under.

    The surprising part (at least to me, when I first taught it and admittedly just hoped I wouldn’t be lecturing to an empty room) is how much students connect with this approach. More than connect with it—they often enjoy it. I’ve received feedback from students that describes the class as life-changing and course reviews that have noted how it changed assumptions regarding what tax even is. High praise from 19- and 20-year-olds.

    The course itself draws on philosophy, political theory, economics and law—but what it really cultivates is a kind of civic literacy. It asks students to think about who they are in relation to the state and how much of their future may be shaped by the tax policy they’ve never been taught to see. For many, it is the first time they’ve encountered taxation not as something to dodge, but as something to question, debate and reimagine in furtherance of their own values.

    In one session, we explore how the tax code is employed as a kind of soft steering wheel in the economy—how it at turns encourages homeownership, subsidizes sports stadiums, directs corporate research and development, and shapes (or even outright creates) the market for electric vehicles. Another week, we explore estate taxes and inheritance: not just who pays, but what it means to redistribute wealth across generations and what happens when we don’t. We read Garrett Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons,” engage in spirited debates about the potential for tax to solve the artificial intelligence copyright debate, and unpack why TurboTax spent two decades fighting free filing.

    Over the course of the class, the question shifts away from what is a tax and toward whose values does this system reflect? That shift—from mere definitional awareness to focused critical engagement—is when I know the class is working. Students cease to see tax as someone else’s problem and begin seeing it as a potent tool of and for democracy.

    In their final papers, students have proposed remarkably forward-looking and sophisticated tax policy reforms—reflecting both creativity and civic seriousness. One student argued that companies receiving public subsidies through tax credits, like chemical and drug manufacturers, should be barred from claiming additional credits to remediate harms their products create. Another proposed a data-collection “sin tax” aimed at discouraging exploitative surveillance practices by tech companies. These aren’t rote academic exercises. They’re thoughtful intervention proposals that treat tax as a lever for shaping society.

    If tax policy determines who gets what, who pays for it and how the government keeps a hand in the marketplace, then it belongs squarely at the heart of a liberal arts education. We don’t cabin discussions of justice in law schools, and we don’t isolate questions of the public good in policy programs—why do we treat taxation, which intersects with both and innumerable other facets of modern life, as off-limits or too technical for undergraduates?

    This isn’t a plea to teach undergraduates to file their own taxes—though there is probably a case to be made for that, too. It’s about ensuring curricula help them understand how the world works and how it’s been designed to work for some more than others. That means tackling the politics of Internal Revenue Service funding, exploring how “tax relief” often functions as an upstream transfer of wealth and how a positively sprawling bill like the one recently passed through Congress can obscure much more than it reveals.

    If no one understands how tax policy works, how can anyone meaningfully weigh in on whether they support one revenue bill or another? On issues like immigration, abortion or education funding, many people bring at least some passing knowledge or lived experience to the conversation. Tax remains, for most, a black box. The more opaque it becomes, the more tempting it is for lawmakers to retreat into it—tucking major redistributive choices into the shadows of the tax code, where they can be shielded from public scrutiny.

    On the other hand, when students come to see tax as a form of the civic superstructure—something they live within and not just under—they are empowered to not only understand tax policy but to shape it. That should be one of the goals of any serious undergraduate education.

    We don’t have to, and should not, keep treating tax as one professional niche within other professional niches. If we want students to understand how tax relates to power, fairness and democratic participation, we should give them the tools to talk about it. This needn’t focus on the rates and rules but should illustrate the values taxes reflect and trade-offs they embed.

    Courses like mine don’t require a background in economics, accounting or law. They require a willingness to take seriously the idea that how we tax equates to how we govern. If we can help students see tax not as a source of dread or line item on their paycheck, but as the site of collective economic decision-making, we don’t just produce better-informed graduates—we’ll also produce more engaged citizens.

    Andrew Leahey is a practice professor of law at Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law.

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  • U.S. Universities Can’t Innovate in Isolation (opinion)

    U.S. Universities Can’t Innovate in Isolation (opinion)

    In a paradoxical bid to “make America great again,” President Trump and congressional Republicans are pushing to restrict international research collaboration in U.S. higher education. The Department of Education is investigating Harvard University; the University of California, Berkeley; and the University of Pennsylvania for potential violations of the Higher Education Act, which requires universities to report foreign gifts and contracts valued at $250,000 or more.

    Policymakers are further proposing to lower that threshold to $50,000 and require universities to obtain federal waivers before entering into contracts with “foreign countries of concern.” The administration is also seeking to prohibit Harvard from enrolling international students and placing full or partial travel bans on people from 19 countries. And after pausing student visa interviews for about a month starting in May, the administration is now scrutinizing applicants’ social media accounts to approve or deny their visas.

    At a time when the global race to develop cutting-edge technologies is accelerating, the U.S. should be expanding—not constraining—its international research partnerships.

    Federal demands for foreign gift reporting kicked off in 1986, after Georgetown University received donations from Arab governments to establish its Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. Policymakers worried about potential strings attached, such as influence over curricula and threats to free speech, resulting in legislation requiring universities to disclose foreign funding. Over time, however, compliance waned, and successive administrations allowed the law to fall into disuse.

    That changed in 2019, when the Trump administration revived enforcement and began investigating universities for noncompliance, uncovering billions of dollars in unreported funding. The concern then, as now, was that a lack of transparency threatened academic independence and posed national security risks.

    It is understandable to want to know if foreign governments are influencing American institutions. But is there good reason to think current rules are effective, or that stricter ones would be?

    There is little evidence that decades of lax enforcement have led to significant harm. The Trump administration’s China Initiative, for example, sought to root out espionage in academia but instead cast a wide, indiscriminate net, leading to criminal charges against professors like Feng Tao, Anming Hu and Gang Chen based on questionable allegations. In each case, charges were ultimately dropped or the scientists were acquitted, but not before reputations were damaged and careers derailed. Of the 162 cases prosecuted by the Department of Justice under the China Initiative, only about 20 involved university researchers, and at least nine of these cases ended in dismissed charges or acquittals. The initiative illustrates how geopolitical anxiety can erode academic freedom and damage innocent collaborations for little gain.

    Both the previous and current Trump administrations have scrutinized universities’ research, including on dual-use technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics systems and laser technology, arguing that they can be used to advance foreign governments’ (particularly China’s) military objectives. But politicians too often fail to acknowledge that most applications in these fields are nonmilitary, including autonomous vacuum cleaners, industrial robots and self-driving cars. Autonomous systems have been a long-standing area of global research, much of it geared toward civilian innovation. Moreover, federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, have implicitly supported this research through funding.

    While reporting can be onerous, requiring universities to obtain federal waivers to collaborate with researchers from “foreign countries of concern” is more intrusive. So too are possibly biased social media screening of foreign students and travel bans that prevent entire populations from engaging with U.S. institutions. These policies move beyond transparency into gatekeeping, forcing universities to seek permission before working with researchers from countries like China, home to more than 1.4 billion people and a global leader in scientific research. Past historical lessons on how political tensions have been allowed to erode academic freedom do not need to be relearned.

    Although the U.S. Department of Education claimed to improve the process for foreign gift reporting with a new portal in the first Trump administration, it increased the amount of information for colleges to report. The reporting process, while intended to enhance transparency, imposes bureaucratic costs on institutions.

    Preserving open academic environments, where innovation can thrive, is not a liability, but a strategic advantage. Still, precautions should be taken. Sensitive research should be classified by the federal government. Companies partnering with universities should set clear terms about who can access proprietary projects. People who violate classification rules or contract terms should face consequences. But the default should be freedom, not prohibition.

    To keep America great, it is essential to preserve the openness and intellectual freedom that define U.S. higher education and make it the best postsecondary system in the world, at least as indicated by its dominance of international rankings, share of Nobel laureates and attractiveness to international students. Open academic environments encourage innovation, foster critical thinking and enable researchers to explore cutting-edge fields—including those vital to national competitiveness.

    If the U.S. is to maintain its position as a global leader in research, it must champion academic freedom, not restrict it.

    Neal McCluskey is the director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the Cato Institute, where Kayla Susalla is a research associate.

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  • One Big Beautiful Bill Is Big Betrayal of Students (opinion)

    One Big Beautiful Bill Is Big Betrayal of Students (opinion)

    In late June, House Republicans aired a promotional video about their budget reconciliation bill, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, claiming it will “make the American dream accessible to all Americans again.” That dream—that anyone in this country can achieve prosperity and success through hard work and determination—is what leads people to come to America and stay. It’s no wonder that politicians invoke this promise as part of the reason for needed change.

    Higher education has long been seen as one of the surest paths to economic security in America—it is one foundation that dream rests on. It feels consequential, therefore, that President Trump and congressional Republicans are looking to undercut this vision of the American dream. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act will reshape federal student aid in ways that transform access to higher education and shut everyday Americans out.

    Forthcoming nationally representative survey data from New America, a nonpartisan think tank, shows Americans are clear-eyed about what it really takes to keep the dream alive: an affordable higher education. But they see college falling further out of reach. Nearly nine out of 10 believe college cost is the biggest factor that prevents families from attending college. And three-quarters of Americans agree that the federal government should spend more tax dollars on educational opportunities after high school to make them more affordable, including majorities of both Republicans and Democrats.

    Americans also believe in accountability for this investment. They want a system that rewards effort, responsibility and outcomes—basic values that align with the American dream. Majorities from both parties say colleges and universities should lose access to taxpayer support if their students don’t earn more than a typical high school graduate or if they struggle to pay down their student loan debt.

    Once enacted, the new law will trim the Pell Grant program, making some middle-income families ineligible who used to qualify for small amounts of the Pell Grant. Federal student loans will look vastly different, with big cuts to graduate, parent and lifetime borrowing limits and less generous repayment options for borrowers who fall on hard times. These changes will close one door for many low- and moderate-income Americans, the one that leads to an affordable associate or bachelor’s degree. At the same time, by expanding Pell Grants to short-term job training programs, the law opens another door to very short credentials as few as eight weeks long with little oversight and consumer protection. Our research has shown time and again that these very short credentials will not deliver economic stability nor improve employment prospects.

    And while the law will take meaningful steps toward accountability and will cut off from federal loans associate, bachelor’s and graduate programs that fail to give students an earning boost, those measures exclude all undergraduate short-term certificate programs, which tend to have the worst outcomes. It will also allow programs to continue to operate, even if most of their students struggle to repay their loans.

    Over all, these changes amount to a massive cut of close to $300 billion in critical funds that ensure students have access to a quality education after high school. It will increase dropout risk (which we know is a major predictor of student loan default), and will push families toward private financing products with fewer consumer protections.

    While the president and congressional Republicans say these cuts are necessary under the auspices of extending tax cuts, improving fiscal responsibility and reforming higher education, the truth is this law will achieve none of this. It will add at least $3 trillion to our deficit by expanding tax cuts to wealthy Americans, all while stripping funding from critical programs everyday Americans rely on like Medicaid, SNAP and student aid. It does nothing to fix the underlying problems that drive college costs. It ignores targeted solutions that would promote affordability and expand accountability. That type of thoughtful reform would require bipartisan reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, which is more than a decade overdue.

    Despite what Republicans in Washington say about making the American dream accessible again, this law will only put it further out of reach. The changes will fall hard on all students trying to obtain education after high school—from welders to electricians, nurses, teachers and medical doctors. These are not “elites,” but core constituents. They are working adults, veterans and parents looking to make a better life for their children, hoping that the American dream is still achievable. Instead, they will find that their own government has abandoned them.

    In his inaugural address in January, President Trump said, “The American dream will soon be back and thriving like never before.” But, in truth, it is being suffocated. It’s too late to change this new law, but moving forward Congress and the Trump administration must center everyday Americans and act cautiously before making such seismic cuts. This is not a partisan issue, but a matter of national interest and prosperity. Failing to think about future legislation that makes meaningful student-centered reform to higher education will have political and generational consequences for years to come. It sends a message to future students that only familial wealth will bring college opportunities, and it won’t matter how much hard work they put in or determination they have.

    Rachel Fishman is the director of the higher education program at New America.

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  • The Importance of Early Career Planning (opinion)

    The Importance of Early Career Planning (opinion)

    It’s never too early, but it can be too late. This simple phrase has transformed our advising sessions with graduate students and postdocs, resonating deeply with those navigating the uncertain waters of career transitions. As career advising experts who have guided countless individuals through this journey, we have seen firsthand the power of early career planning and the pitfalls of procrastination.

    Today’s graduate students and postdocs are navigating more than just personal uncertainty. They are facing a rapidly shifting professional landscape influenced by political and societal forces beyond their control. The value of advanced degrees is being questioned in public discourse; funding cuts, hiring freezes and massive layoffs are affecting job prospects; and visa restrictions continue to impact international scholars. These trends are unsettling, but they underscore the same truth: Proactive, flexible career planning is necessary.

    The path from graduate school or a postdoctoral position to a fulfilling career is rarely a straight line. We understand; we both hold Ph.D.s and were postdocs ourselves. Yet, many students and early-career researchers delay thinking about their next steps, often until the pressure of impending graduation or the end of an appointment looms large. This delay can turn the exciting question of “What’s next?” into the anxiety-inducing “What now?”

    One common fear we encounter in our advising sessions is the fear of the unknown, and now more than ever, our best advice remains the same: Start sooner rather than later. When harnessed properly, this fear can become a powerful motivator for early career planning. If you build in time to explore your options, test possibilities and develop a flexible plan, you will be far better equipped to navigate unforeseen changes.

    Crucially, starting early does not mean locking yourself into one path. It means giving yourself enough time to adapt, explore and build a more informed and confident future, even if that future changes along the way.

    Your Hidden Advantage

    As graduate students or postdocs, you are in a unique position: You are essentially being paid to learn and become experts in your field. Beyond your specific area of study, you also have access to a wealth of resources at your research institutions designed to support your professional development. These resources include:

    • Career services: Do not wait until your final year to visit the career office. Start early and make regular appointments to discuss your evolving career goals and strategies. Career service professionals can help you save precious time and effort and remain advocates for you in your career-exploration journey. Many of us know exactly how you are feeling because we have been there, too!
    • Workshops and seminars: Attend professional and career-development workshops offered by your institution. These often cover crucial topics like résumé writing, interview preparation or networking strategies.
    • Alumni networks: Leverage your institution’s alumni network. Alumni can provide valuable insights into various career paths, and many are eager to help current graduate students and postdocs navigate the job search process.
    • Professional associations: Join relevant professional associations in your field. Many offer graduate students and postdocs memberships at reduced rates and provide access to job boards, conferences, networking events and leadership opportunities.
    • International student and scholar services: If you are on a visa, connect early with your institution’s international center. These offices can offer critical guidance on work authorization options, strategies for transitioning from an academic-sponsored visa to another type of professional visa (such as the H-1B visa) and long-term planning toward permanent residency. They can also connect you with immigration attorneys and employer resources to help you advocate for yourself throughout the process.

    Now is the time to take action. This month, schedule an appointment with your institution’s career services office (trust us, we are excited to meet and help you) and/or attend a networking event or workshop outside your immediate field of study.

    If your plan involves stepping beyond the academic landscape, do not underestimate the power of building your professional network, as referrals and recommendations play a growing role in hiring decisions. The relationships you build now, through informational interviews, mentorship and community engagement, can become invaluable sources of insight, opportunity and support throughout your career.

    The Perils of Procrastination

    Waiting until the final months of your program or position to begin your job search is a recipe for stress and missed opportunities. Early preparation not only reduces anxiety but also allows you to explore multiple career paths, build necessary skills and make meaningful connections.

    As career professionals, we see the impact of procrastination all the time: rushed applications, unclear goals, missed deadlines and tremendous stress. In our own career-exploration journey, we have been fortunate to experience the opposite. Our approach to prepare early opened doors to valuable opportunities and reduced the pressure to find just any job at the end of our postdoc. That contrast is a big reason why we now advocate so strongly for starting career planning before urgency sets in, even if you are still figuring out where you want to go.

    So what does early preparation look like?

    If you already have a strong idea of your next career step, whether it is to become faculty at a R-1 institution or secure an R&D position in industry, you should begin preparing at least a year before your intended transition. This gives you time to identify target roles, network meaningfully, develop your application materials and be ready when opportunities arise.

    If you are still unsure about what your next career step is, start your exploration journey as soon as possible. Identifying careers of interest, scheduling informational interviews, developing your professional network in the areas of interest and learning or building new skills take time. Remember that the earlier you begin, the more options you will be able to explore. Career planning is not just for people with a clear path—it is also how you find your path.

    Another critical reason to start early? Networking. Building professional relationships is one of the most powerful tools in your career exploration and job search tool kit, but it takes time. The best networking conversations happen when you are genuinely curious and not urgently seeking a job. If you wait until you are in crisis mode, panicked, pressed for time and desperate for a position, that energy can unintentionally seep into your conversations and make them less effective. By starting to connect with people well before you are actively applying for jobs, you can ask better questions, get clearer insights and build authentic relationships that may open doors later on.

    The International Perspective

    International graduate students and postdocs are navigating career planning under especially difficult circumstances. The experience of working and building a life in another country already comes with challenges, what with being far from home, managing complex visa systems and building support networks from scratch. With the current increasing political scrutiny, shifting immigration policies and rising uncertainty around international education, the pressure has only grown.

    We want to acknowledge that this is not just a logistical issue—it is also an emotional one. For many international scholars, the stress of career planning is compounded by fears about stability, belonging and being able to stay in the country to which you have contributed so much. These are not easy conversations, and they should not be faced alone.

    That is why early, informed and strategic planning is especially important. With the right tools, guidance and support system, you can better navigate the uncertainty and advocate for your future.

    • Use your resources. Connect early and often with your university’s international student or scholar office. They can clarify visa timelines, regulations and documentation requirements.
    • Get legal support. Consult with a qualified immigration attorney who can help you understand your options and advocate for you.
    • Network with intention. Seek out events, professional associations and communities that are welcoming to international scholars. These relationships can lead to valuable advice, referrals or even job opportunities.

    While visa policies and political rhetoric may be out of your control, the way you prepare and position yourself is not. Planning ahead can help you reduce uncertainty, take advantage of time-sensitive opportunities and build a support system to help you succeed wherever your career takes you.

    Know Your Path to Success

    Many students and postdocs have a clear vision of their desired career but lack understanding of how to get there. For example, many aspiring faculty underestimate how important it is to gain teaching experience or to have early conversations with their supervisor about which projects they can pursue independently for their future research statements. Similarly, those aiming for roles in industry or policy may overlook essential skills such as project management, stakeholder communication or regulatory knowledge until they begin applying and realize the gap.

    Career paths are often shaped by more than just qualifications. They are influenced by relationships, timing, self-awareness and luck, but especially by the ability to recognize and act on opportunities when they arise. That is why we often reference “planned happenstance,” a career-development theory by John Krumboltz, which encourages people to remain open-minded, take action and position themselves to benefit from unexpected opportunities. It is not about having a rigid plan, but about preparing enough that you can pivot with purpose.

    Here are three practical strategies to help you do just that:

    1. Conduct informational interviews: Speak with professionals in your target roles for invaluable insights into their day-to-day realities and career paths. Ask about those hidden requirements—the transferable skills and experiences crucial for success, but not necessarily listed in job descriptions. Use this knowledge to identify and address skill gaps early in your academic journey.
    2. Perform skill audits: Regularly assess your skills against job descriptions in your desired field and identify gaps you need to address through coursework, volunteer experiences or side projects.
    3. Seek mentorship: A good mentor can provide guidance, open doors and help you avoid common pitfalls in your career journey. Consider building a network of mentors rather than relying on a single person; different mentors can support different aspects of your professional growth. Your career services office is a great place to start!

    Early planning gives you the ability to shape your own narrative, develop key experiences intentionally and take advantage of unexpected opportunities. Do not wait to be ready to start; start now, and readiness will come.

    Start Here: A Career Planning Checklist

    Career planning does not have to be overwhelming. Small steps, taken consistently, can lead to powerful outcomes, whether you are in year one of a Ph.D. program or year four of a postdoc. Use this checklist to begin or re-energize your professional development journey.

    This month, try to:

    • Schedule a career advising appointment—even if you’re “just exploring.”
    • Attend one workshop or seminar outside of your research area.
    • Reach out to someone for an informational interview (a colleague, alum or speaker whose path interests you).
    • Identify one skill you want to build in the coming months and one way to begin (e.g., take a course, volunteer, shadow someone).
    • Join or re-engage with a professional association or community.

    By starting your career planning early, you are not just preparing for a job: You are laying the foundation for a fulfilling career. Small, consistent efforts can lead to significant results over time. The resources available to you as graduate students and postdocs are invaluable, but only effective if you use them. Do not wait for your future to happen; start building it today!

    Ellen Dobson, G.C.D.F., is the postdoctoral and graduate program manager at the Morgridge Institute for Research, where she leads professional and career-development programming for early-career researchers. Drawing on her experience as a Ph.D., postdoc and staff scientist, she is dedicated to helping graduate students and postdocs explore fulfilling career paths through supportive, practical guidance.

    Anne-Sophie Bohrer is the program manager for career and professional development in the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs at the University of Michigan. In this role, she leads the development of programs to support postdoctoral fellows from all disciplines.

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  • Who Benefits Most From New Admission Tactic? (opinion)

    Who Benefits Most From New Admission Tactic? (opinion)

    I am not currently on a 12-step program of any kind, but recently I felt the need to seek forgiveness for a transgression committed 50 years ago. This summer is the 50th anniversary of the release of Jaws, the movie that redefined the definition of blockbuster and made a whole generation think twice before stepping into the ocean for a quick dip.

    I took my little sister to see Jaws that summer, having already seen it. As big brothers do, I waited until the exact moment when the shark leaps out of the water while Roy Scheider is casually ladling chum into the ocean behind the boat and either grabbed or pinched her. All to make the movie-watching experience more realistic, of course.

    A recent article in The Washington Post explored why, despite three sequels, Jaws never became a money-making franchise in the way that Star Wars or the Marvel movies have. The obvious reason is that Steven Spielberg elected not to be involved after the original movie. Thus, while I find myself humming John Williams’s simple but ominous theme music every time I read the latest news, the only thing I remember from any of the other three movies is the tagline for Jaws 2: “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.”

    I thought about that tagline from a college admission perspective last week when I learned that Cornell College (the one in Iowa, not the Ivy) has launched what is either an innovative financial aid initiative or a gimmick.

    As detailed by several other publications, Cornell College emailed 16,000 soon-to-be high school seniors in its inquiry pool. Nothing unusual about that. What was different about this email was that it included a link to a personalized estimated financial aid package. Sending out financial aid offers/estimates to students who haven’t applied for financial aid or admission is the new twist in what Cornell calls its “Save Your Seat” initiative.

    If you are wondering how Cornell was able to send an estimated aid package to students who haven’t completed a FAFSA, the college started by mining ZIP code data for its inquiry pool. The nine-digit ZIP+4 code in student addresses provides precise information about where they live and allows Cornell to guesstimate a family’s economic circumstances. It might therefore be more accurate to say that the estimated financial aid package is individualized rather than personalized, because there is an element of geographic or ZIP code profiling taking place. The ZIP+4 information is supplemented by aggregated data provided by College Raptor, the consulting firm engaged by Cornell, along with historical internal data on financial aid packages.

    There are some kinks to work out and questions to be considered, of course. How will Cornell factor in Pell Grants and other governmental financial aid? Will the college make up the difference if the student’s Student Aid Index turns out to be higher than Cornell’s estimate? Apparently Cornell did some testing using applicants from last year and found that the estimates were reliable in the vast majority of cases.

    The Save Your Seat financial aid package for every student includes a $33,000 National Academic Scholarship covering nearly half of Cornell’s list price. To guarantee access to the aid, Cornell is asking students to apply by the end of this month and submit an enrollment deposit by Sept. 1. As The Chronicle of Higher Education explains, “students who apply by the end of July and submit a deposit by September 1 are guaranteed to receive the $33,000 scholarship, plus any institutional need-based grants for which they might qualify, based on their estimate. They will also get first dibs on housing and first-year seminars. (Those who deposit by November 8 will get the same deal, minus the guaranteed need-based grants and priority registration for the seminars.)”

    So what should we make of Save Your Seat? Is Cornell College on to something, or is this another marketing gimmick intended to differentiate Cornell from the mass of small liberal arts colleges? (Its one-course-at-a-time curriculum already distinguishes it.)

    I applaud Cornell for trying to introduce some transparency about cost up front. We know that affordability is both a major concern and a major impediment for many families in considering colleges, and particularly private colleges. Having a way to estimate cost early in the college search rather than at the very end is potentially a huge step forward for college admission. Cornell’s initiative might be thought of as an updated version of the net price calculator, with someone else doing the calculations for you. Save Your Seat might also be seen as the next iteration in the direct admission movement.

    But let us stop for a moment to acknowledge that Cornell’s new initiative, while more transparent, isn’t truly transparent. It does nothing to illuminate the high-cost, high-discount model that higher education relies on.

    There are good reasons for that. There have been several colleges that have tried to lead a movement to reset tuition, substantially reducing their sticker price but also substantially reducing discounts. They learned two things. The first was that they were willing to lead, but other colleges were not willing to follow.

    The bigger issue is that they learned that families are more than happy to pay lower tuition but are not happy to lose their “merit” scholarships. As it turns out, merit scholarships are among the least transparent and most misunderstood contrivances in college admission—perhaps deliberately so.

    Just last week, I spoke with someone who was surprised that a nephew had been admitted to college and then shocked when he received a merit scholarship. That conversation brought to mind a phone call I had with the mother of one of my students years ago. The son was a good kid but not a strong student, and he had just received merit scholarships to two different colleges. I finally figured out that the point of her call was to ask what was wrong with the two colleges that were awarding her son merit scholarships.

    The $33,000 National Academic Scholarships offered to every Save Your Seat email recipient might be thought of as the higher education equivalent of Oprah’s “You get a merit scholarship! You get a merit scholarship!” Cornell is far from alone in giving a discount to most or all students, but the potential pickle in which it finds itself is a situation where it tells students they are not admitted after already telling them they have won a merit scholarship.

    That is far from the biggest ethical issue raised by the new plan. If the move toward greater financial aid transparency, at least in theory, is a positive step, asking students to apply by the end of July and deposit by September is anything but.

    When the National Association for College Admission Counseling was forced to abandon key aspects of its code of ethics as part of a consent decree with the antitrust division of the U.S. Department of Justice, there were fears that college admission might deteriorate into a lawless Wild West, with colleges coming up with new strategies and incentives to coerce vulnerable students into decisions they weren’t ready to make. Thankfully that hasn’t happened to the degree predicted.

    Cornell’s decision to tie the Save Your Seat financial offers to an earlier application and enrollment deadline represents another leap forward in the acceleration of the college admission process. Who thinks that’s a good idea for students? It ignores the fact that many high school counseling offices are closed during the summer and won’t be able to send transcripts (perhaps Cornell will use self-reported grades). It is also significantly earlier than the provision in the now-defunct NACAC Statement of Principles of Good Practice prohibiting an application deadline before Oct. 15. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.

    It’s not clear to me why the earlier deadlines are necessary for the program to work. It’s clear that there are benefits for Cornell, but students should be allowed to choose where to go to college thoughtfully and freely, without coercion or manipulation. Whose seat is being saved here?

    Jim Jump recently retired after 33 years as the academic dean and director of college counseling at St. Christopher’s School in Richmond, Va. He previously served as an admissions officer, philosophy instructor and women’s basketball coach at the college level and is a past president of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. He is the 2024 recipient of NACAC’s John B. Muir Excellence in Media Award.

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  • Family Structure Matters to Student Achievement. What Should We Do With That? – The 74

    Family Structure Matters to Student Achievement. What Should We Do With That? – The 74


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    A version of this essay originally appeared on Robert Pondiscio’s SubStack. 

    A recent report from the University of Virginia—Good Fathers, Flourishing Kids — confirms what many of us know instinctively but rarely see, or avoid altogether, in education debates: The presence and engagement of a child’s father has a powerful effect on their academic and emotional well-being. It’s the kind of data that should stop us in our tracks — and redirect our attention away from educational fads and toward the foundational structures that shape student success long before a child ever sets foot in a classroom.

    The research — led by my AEI colleague Brad Wilcox and co-authored by a diverse team that includes another AEI colleague, Ian Rowe — finds that children in Virginia with actively involved fathers are more likely to earn good grades, less likely to have behavior problems in school, and dramatically less likely to suffer from depression. Specifically, children with disengaged fathers are 68% less likely to get mostly good grades and nearly four times more likely to be diagnosed with depression. These are not trivial effects. They are seismic.

    Most striking is the report’s finding that there is no meaningful difference in school grades among demographically diverse children raised in intact families. Black and white students living with their fathers get mostly As at roughly equal rates — more than 85% — and are equally unlikely to experience school behavior problems. The achievement gap, in other words, appears to be less about race and more about the structure and stability of the family.

    Figure 9 from Wilcox et al., Good Fathers, Flourishing Kids

    This may be a surprising finding to some, but not to William Jeynes, a professor of education at California State University, Long Beach, whose meta-analyses have previously demonstrated the outsized academic impact of family structure and religious faith. (The new UVA report does not study the role of church-going). 

    As I wrote in How the Other Half Learns, Jeynes’ work highlights how two-parent households and religious engagement produce measurable benefits in educational achievement. “When two parents are present, this maximizes the frequency and quality of parental involvement. There are many dedicated single parents,” Jeynes has noted. However, the reality is that when one parent must take on the roles and functions of two, it is simply more difficult than when two parents are present.” Jeynes’ most stunning finding, and his most consistent, is that if a Black or Hispanic student is raised in a religious home with two biological parents the achievement gap totally disappears—even when adjusting for socioeconomic status.

    My colleague Ian Rowe has been a tireless advocate for recognizing and responding to these patterns. He has long argued that NAEP, the Nation’s Report Card, should disaggregate student achievement data by family composition, not just by race and income. That simple step would yield a more honest accounting of the challenges schools are facing — and help avoid both unfair blame and unearned credit.

    Yet this conversation remains a third rail in education. Many teachers and administrators are understandably wary of saying too much about family structure for fear of stigmatizing children from single-parent households, particularly in settings where single-parent households are dominant. Rowe has also faced resistance to his efforts to valorize the “Success Sequence,” the empirical finding that graduating high school, getting a full-time job and marrying before having children dramatically increases one’s odds of avoiding poverty. But being cautious is not the same as being silent, and it’s not compassionate to pretend these dynamics don’t matter when the data so clearly shows that they do.

    None of this absolves educators of their duty to reach and teach every child. But it does suggest we should be clear-eyed in how we interpret data and set expectations. Teachers, particularly those in low-income communities, often shoulder the full weight of student outcomes while lacking the ability to influence some of the most powerful predictors of those outcomes. That’s frustrating — and understandably so.

    Citing compelling evidence on fatherhood and family formation is not a call for resignation or excuse-making. It’s a call for awareness and intelligent action. While schools can’t influence or re-engineer family structure, teachers can respond in ways that affirm the role of fathers and strengthen the school-home connection. They can make fathers feel welcome and expected in school life — not merely tolerated. They can design family engagement activities that include dads as co-participants, not afterthoughts. They can build classroom cultures that offer structure and mentoring, especially to students who may lack it at home. 

    And maybe — just maybe — the field can overcome its reluctance to share with students what research so clearly shows will benefit them and the children they will have in the future. Rowe takes pains to note his initiative to teach the Success Sequence is intended to help students make decisions about the families they will form, not the ones they’re from. “It’s not about telling them what to do,” he says, “it’s about giving them the data and letting them decide for themselves.”

    This leads to a final point, and for some an uncomfortable one: If we truly care about student outcomes, perhaps we should be willing to support the institutions that reliably foster them. And that includes religious schools.

    Religious schools — particularly those rooted in faith traditions that emphasize marriage, family life and moral formation — often create environments where the presence of fathers and the reinforcement of shared values are not incidental but central. A recent analysis by Patrick J. Wolf of the University of Arkansas, published in the Journal of Catholic Education, found that adults who attended religious schools are significantly more likely to marry, stay married, and avoid nonmarital births compared to public‑school peers. The effects are most pronounced among individuals from lower‑income backgrounds.

    In states with Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) and other school choice mechanisms, we have an opportunity — perhaps an obligation — to expand access to these institutions. That’s not merely a question of parental rights or religious liberty. It’s a matter of public interest. If these schools produce better education and social outcomes by encouraging family formation and reinforcing the value of fatherhood, the public benefits — even if instruction is delivered in a faith-based context. Said simply: The goal of educational policy and practice is not to save the system. It’s to help students flourish.

    So yes, let’s fund fatherhood initiatives. Let’s run PSAs about the importance of dads. But let’s also get serious about expanding access to the kinds of schools — whether secular or religious in nature — that support the kind of family culture where children are most likely to thrive. Because if we follow the evidence where it leads, we must conclude that the biggest intervention in education is not another literacy coach or SEL curriculum. It’s dad.


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  • Satirical Essay on Restructuring Humanities (opinion)

    Satirical Essay on Restructuring Humanities (opinion)

    The administration at U of All People has suffered long enough with the underperforming School of Social Sciences and Humanities. Its various departments, programs and whatnot have grown arcane to the point where the students themselves no longer understand the difference between, say, philosophy and psychology, save that both begin with the letter p. And since many students no longer engage in reading or writing without the aid of AI, we should stop supporting distinct majors that encourage both. Consequently, we are restructuring the school to reflect the current dictates of academic administration.

     Here are some issues we have made up to justify the restructuring:

    • There has been a recent decrease in enrollment, or at least there ought to have been.
    • These are perilous times for the humanities, and smushing them together will help.
    • Merging departments will make the infrastructure more economical, particularly if we do away with pesky department offices and office staff.
    • Just saying the word “interdisciplinary” makes us feel connected to the 21st century.

    SSSH currently includes English, history, philosophy, religion, sociology, anthropology, modern languages, linguistics, political science, psychology, classics and several others that may have escaped our notice. However, we have hired a consultancy firm that can list them all. Already, the consultants have put together a PowerPoint presentation advising what they have inferred we want.

    The restructuring will feature programs such as philohistenglish-religiosophy (PHER), anthrosociopsychology (ASP) and perhaps two other smushes with better acronyms. The new, flexible majors may be grouped under the Program for (Somewhat Limited Freedom of) Speech, the Program for Global Awareness of What Trouble We’re In and the Program That Resembles a Grab Bag From a Kids’ Party. Instead of a bunch of quarrelsome department heads and a dean, a triumvirate of armed SSSH administrators will be responsible for keeping the peace.

    We have already polled the faculty and students in a metric calculated to prove our point: On a scale of one to 10, please rate how dissatisfied you are with the current setup, with one being “very” and 10 being “extremely.” The 12 respondents answered that they were very dissatisfied. Note that we are perfectly willing to listen to suggestions from the faculty and in fact have invited them all to attend a feedback session to take place yesterday at 3 a.m. in the Student Center Ballroom (bring your own flashlight!). However, we urge the faculty not to think outside the box we have placed them in while also being nimble when it comes to downsizing.

    During this process, the SSSH building itself, shabby compared to the shiny new STEM complex, will be restructured, possibly to a multilevel parking garage with spots reserved for U of All People administrators. It has also been suggested that the faculty themselves could use some restructuring, starting with their mouths, which can be sealed through a painless surgical procedure.

    Don’t think of it as a loss of autonomy and shared governance. Consider it a gain for this administration!

    David Galef is a professor of English and the creative writing program director at Montclair State University. His latest book is the novel Where I Went Wrong (Regal House, 2025).

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  • Hiring With Your Head—and Your Gut (opinion)

    Hiring With Your Head—and Your Gut (opinion)

    We’ve all been there: sitting on a search committee, sifting through credentials, interview notes and teaching demos, trying to decide whom to bring into our academic community. We talk about fit, collegiality and the balance between teaching and research. We refer to the rubric, the required qualifications and the preferred ones. We weigh experiences, diversity, alignment with the mission and potential.

    And sometimes, quietly and without warning, we feel that small, subtle shift in our gut that says something doesn’t align.

    For me, it happened during a campus interview years ago. The candidate had strong materials, solid experience and a warm, engaging manner. Throughout the formal interview, they said all the right things. Faculty were cautiously optimistic. But as I drove the candidate to the airport at the end of the visit, something changed. They relaxed, as anyone would, and for a brief second, I saw something in their eyes. A flash of disdain, maybe. Something sharper than the persona we had seen earlier. It was a shift in energy. A flicker of incongruence between how they had presented themselves and how they now carried themselves.

    I put the feeling aside. After all, it was just a second. A moment. Something I couldn’t explain. Was I reading too much into it? Was I being unfair?

    Later, I reflected on smaller details from their candidacy that had already made me pause. Their responses to scheduling emails had been brief and slow, lacking the warmth or curiosity I’d seen from other candidates. These weren’t red flags on their own, but together they created a subtle unease.

    At the time, I was a relatively new assistant professor. I didn’t have the language or the authority to raise what I sensed in a meaningful way. And so, I said nothing.

    Looking back, I now realize I could have simply asked a question like, “Did anyone else notice anything that felt a little different or off in our less formal moments with the candidate?” or “How did the candidate’s tone and energy feel during the downtimes between scheduled sessions?” These aren’t accusations—they’re openings for reflection. Questions like these can invite others to surface what they might have noticed but hadn’t yet verbalized.

    Gut Feeling Meets Emotional Intelligence

    Intuition doesn’t have to be the enemy of process. In fact, it can be part of an emotionally intelligent hiring culture—one that’s reflective, discerning and transparent. Emotional intelligence in this context is about being attuned to the human elements of a candidate’s fit. When we notice a gut reaction—whether it’s a spark of enthusiasm or a twinge of concern—it often stems from that attunement. What we call a “gut feeling” is frequently our mind’s quick synthesis of subtle cues, from body language to tone, guided by our own experiences and values.

    Emotional intelligence in faculty hiring begins with self-awareness: tuning in to how a candidate’s presence affects you—whether through curiosity, ease or discomfort—and asking what your reactions might be signaling. It includes social awareness, noticing how others respond in informal moments and whether the candidate engages in ways that feel consistent with your department’s values.

    Emotionally intelligent hiring also requires self-regulation—the discipline to slow down, hold back from snap judgments and lean into questions rather than assumptions. It thrives on relational transparency, where committee members can share subtle impressions without fear of being dismissed as merely “subjective.” And it rests on ethical discernment: the ability to examine whether those impressions are connected to job-relevant behaviors, not unconscious biases.

    Testing What We Feel

    Intuition shouldn’t be used to override policy or protocol. It should be used to sharpen it. When something feels off, ask yourself,

    • Am I noticing a misalignment between the candidate’s stated values and their interpersonal behavior?
    • Have others noted something similar?
    • Is there a way to probe deeper in follow-up interviews?
    • Can references offer insight into what I’m sensing?
    • Is what I’m noticing connected to the job’s required competencies, or is it something unrelated?

    If the answer to that last question is unclear, slow down. Revisit the evaluation criteria. Look for patterns. Talk with colleagues. Our job isn’t to be mind readers—it’s to be community stewards.

    When Intuition Becomes Wisdom

    We often think of emotional intelligence as something soft and interpersonal. But it’s also rigorous. It requires noticing your own biases, resisting overconfidence and attending to the full emotional ecology of a hiring process.

    The truth is, faculty hires change departments. They shape culture, morale, collaboration and stability. We owe it to our institutions and ourselves to trust what we notice and to reflect on it with care.

    Sometimes the most important insights don’t shout—they whisper. When we honor our instincts enough to examine them, and then ground them in facts, we hire with both head and gut. That practice doesn’t just avoid heartbreaks, mismatches and regrets—it builds stronger hires and healthier departments.

    When we talk openly about what we sense—not just what we score—we build departments rooted in both discernment and trust.

    Treavor Bogard is a department chair and associate professor of teacher education at the University of Dayton. He writes about emotionally intelligent leadership in higher education and is the author of The Emotionally Intelligent Chair, a Substack newsletter exploring the inner work of leading academic departments with purpose, reflection and care.

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  • They Will Not Stop With UVA (opinion)

    They Will Not Stop With UVA (opinion)

    Each summer I make a point of stopping by a first-year orientation session at the University of Virginia, where I have been a professor in the music department for 18 years. The sessions take place in the historic concert hall on the floor below my office. On June 30, members of the Class of 2029 danced their arrival wearing the university’s colors of blue and orange.

    Usually, the raw enthusiasm and promise of the students reminds me why, on many days, I love my job. It didn’t work this time. I just couldn’t resolve the dissonance between the fantasy and the reality. The fantasy was of a college education these young people worked so hard to land. In real life, the Department of Justice had just pressured our president, Jim Ryan, into quitting, demanding his resignation to supposedly resolve an investigation into the university’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

    This is almost old news by now. But it shouldn’t be. There is a direct line between the Jan. 6 insurrection and the 2017 Unite the Right march, when, just days before first-year students started school, a few hundred white nationalists emboldened by the first Trump presidency marched across campus with their torches, chanting, “Jews will not replace us.” The legal historian Farah Peterson, who used to teach here, writes that “an embrace of violence to assert constitutional claims” is baked into our history and that the founders understood violence as a way of making legal arguments.

    The charge against UVA by the Department of Justice is being led by two UVA alums. One of them, Harmeet Dhillon, an assistant attorney general who overlapped with Jim Ryan at UVA law school, served as co-chair in 2020 of Lawyers for Trump, which challenged the presidential election results, and represented Trump in a defamation suit involving Stormy Daniels.

    The ousting of Jim Ryan was not a surprise. But even after the Trump administration’s relentless siege on universities, it was a gut punch. Those of us who teach here have predicted for months that the Board of Visitors would try to fire Ryan this July, when all of its appointed members would be Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s appointees. We’ve been through that before. In 2012, when the Board of Visitors fired then-president Teresa Sullivan, faculty, students and alumni stood up to resist corporate America infringing on the educational mission of the university, and the board reinstated her.

    Youngkin’s newest appointees to UVA’s board include the controversial Ken Cuccinelli, who, when he was the state attorney general, led an assault on academic freedom in the form of a civil investigation targeting five grants held by climate scientist Michael Mann. Youngkin, for his part, has long intended to purge the state’s education system of “divisive concepts”—things like acknowledging the fact that the buildings of Jefferson’s “Academical Village” were built by the enslaved. When the Board of Visitors banned DEI in March of this year, Youngkin gleefully stated, “DEI is done at the University of Virginia. We stand for the universal truth that everyone is created equal, and opportunity is at the heart of Virginians’ and Americans’ future.”

    I think we know whom he means by “everyone.”

    Beloved by many here, including me, Ryan is perhaps a once-in-a-generation leader. Still, he is so very far from “woke.” As the student satire magazine put it, “Fly high Jim, we’ll never forget the early mornings, late nights, and also the several hundred state troopers you sent to attack students for peacefully protesting.” In May 2024, Ryan did not hesitate to crack down on a very small pro-Palestine encampment. No one at the university cracked down on those tiki torch–bearing white nationalists.

    Here is what we are guilty of: believing that our professional duty requires us to openly reflect on our individual and collective responsibilities in a democracy. We do think it’s our job to give our students tools to respond to the world they will inherit. If we were guilty of or capable of “left-wing indoctrination,” I suspect we would have a different governor and maybe different other things, too. Almost 70 percent of our students are from Virginia.

    Because we are guilty of believing that history matters, we can’t ignore the wicked irony of a federal and state government killing diversity-related programs and forcing out a president in part by leveraging the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, ratified in1868. This amendment, which mandated equal protection for all humans, is now weaponized to protect only white people. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination based on race, religion, sex or national origin. It has been similarly weaponized.

    Meanwhile, our history also includes these facts: The UVA biology department taught eugenics until 1953. Not only was the institution built by enslaved laborers, but by 1829 it had its very own slave patrol. Indeed, Thomas Jefferson wanted to establish a University of Virginia in part because too many young men went north and learned the evils of abolition. Such thinking amounted to a canker “eating on the vitals of our existence, and if not arrested at once will be beyond remedy.” More recently, the Office for Civil Rights did not approve the commonwealth of Virginia’s plan for desegregating higher education until 1982.

    My current and former students have been texting from all over the world since Ryan’s June 27 resignation announcement. Mostly they want to know: Why UVA? Virginia is arguably ground zero for reckoning with the chattel slave system and its intertwining with a flailing fantasy of democracy. “The 1619 Project” made front-page news of it. But you don’t have to go back that far.

    Thanks to the summer of 2017, for many Charlottesville now conjures images of burning torches and Nazi slogans. Over the weekend of Aug. 11 and 12, 2017, the sleeping dogs of America’s nasty history rose up from the evidently not dead. Richard Spencer (UVA, Class of 2001) helped orchestrate a torchlit nighttime march across our campus, the marchers barking, “Blood and soil” and “Jews will not replace us.” The university let this happen. In her book about the weekend of Unite the Right and the ideology that inspired it, Deborah Baker writes, “The nature of this awakening appeared to go to the core of who we are and the myths and folklore that have sustained us as a nation.”

    Also that weekend of Unite the Right, a young woman was murdered and dozens were injured when a neo-Nazi drove a car into a group of counterprotesters. While the city was still reeling, Trump went on television and claimed there had been “very fine people on both sides.” There was an uproar and a backlash then. And in September 2017, the president had no choice but to sign a congressional joint resolution condemning the violence and domestic terrorist attack in Charlottesville. It is clear that no such condemnation would be forthcoming today.

    This administration will not stop with Jim Ryan, and they will not stop with UVA. The miraculous dean who got those first-year students to dance on a hot June day in 2025 will get them dancing at their graduation in May of 2029. But I am very afraid of what this university, and other institutions of higher learning across the country, will look and feel like by then.

    Bonnie Gordon is a professor of music at the University of Virginia and vice president of the American Musicological Society.



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  • Essay on Faculty Engagement and Web Accessibility (opinion)

    Essay on Faculty Engagement and Web Accessibility (opinion)

    Inaccessible PDFs are a stubborn problem. How can we marshal the energy within our institutions to make digital course materials more accessible—one PDF, one class, one instructor at a time?

    Like many public higher education institutions, William & Mary is working to come into compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines by April 2026. These guidelines aim to ensure digital content is accessible for people who rely on screen readers and require that content be machine-readable.

    Amid a flurry of other broad institutional efforts to comply with the federal deadline, my colleague—coordinator of instruction for libraries Liz Bellamy—and I agreed to lead a series of workshops designed to help instructors improve the accessibility of their digital course materials. We’ve learned a lot along the way that we hope can be instructive to other institutions engaged in this important work.

    What We’ve Tried

    Our first big hurdle wasn’t technical—it was cultural, structural and organizational. At the same time various groups across campus were addressing digital accessibility, William & Mary had just moved our learning management system from Blackboard Learn to Blackboard Ultra, we were beginning the rollout of new campuswide enterprise software for several major institutional areas, the institution achieved R-1 status and everyone had so many questions about generative AI. Put plainly, instructors were overwhelmed, and inaccessible PDFs were only one of many competing priorities vying for their attention.

    To tackle the issue, a group of institutional leaders launched the “Strive for 85” campaign, encouraging instructors to raise their scores in Blackboard Ally, which provides automated feedback to instructors on the accessibility of their course materials, to 85 percent or higher. The idea was simple—make most course content accessible, starting with the most common problem: PDFs that are not machine-readable.

    We kicked things off at our August 2024 “Ready, Set, Teach!” event, offering workshops and consultations. Instructors learned how to find and use their Ally reports, scan and convert PDFs, and apply practical strategies to improve digital content accessibility. In the year that followed, we tried everything we could think of to keep the momentum going and move the needle on our institutional Ally score above the baseline. Despite our best efforts, some approaches fell flat:

    • Let’s try online workshops! Low engagement.
    • What about in-person sessions? Low attendance.
    • But what if we feed them lunch? Low attendance, now with a fridge full of leftovers.
    • OK, what if we reach out to department chairs and ask to speak in their department meetings? It turns out department meeting agendas are already pretty full; response rates were … low (n = 1).

    The truth is, instructors are busy. Accessibility often feels like one more thing on an already full plate. So far, our greatest success stories have come from one-on-one conversations and by identifying departmental champions—instructors who will model and advocate for accessible practices with discipline-specific solutions. (Consider the linguistics professor seeking an accurate 3-D model of the larynx collaborating with a health sciences colleague, who provided access to an interactive model from an online medical textbook—enhancing accessibility for students learning about speech production.)

    But these approaches require time and people power we don’t always have. Despite the challenges we’ve faced with scaling our efforts, when success happens, it can feel a little magical, like the time at the end of one of our highly attended workshops (n = 2) when a previously skeptical instructor reflected, “So, it sounds like accessibility is about more than students with disabilities. This can also help my other students.”

    What We’ve Learned

    Two ingredients seem essential:

    1. Activation energy: Instructors need a compelling reason to act, but they also need a small step to get started; otherwise, the work can feel overwhelming.

    Sometimes this comes in the form of an individual student disclosing their need for accessible content. But often, college students (especially first year or first generation) don’t disclose disabilities or feel empowered to advocate for themselves. For some instructors, seeing their score in Ally is enough of a motivation—they’re high achievers, and they don’t want a “low grade” on anything linked to their name. More often, though, we’ve seen instructors engage in this work because a colleague or department chair tells them they need to. Leveraging positive peer pressure, coupled with quick practical solutions to improve accessibility, seems to be an effective approach.

    1. Point-of-need support: Help must be timely, relevant and easy to access.

    When instructors feel overwhelmed by the mountain of accessibility recommendations in their Ally reports, they are often hesitant to even get started. We’ve found that personal conversations about student engagement and course content or design often provide an opening to talk about accessibility. And once the door is open, instructors are often very receptive to hearing about a few small changes they can make to improve the accessibility of their course content.

    Where Things Stand

    Now for the reality check. So far, our institutional Ally score has been fairly stagnant; we haven’t reached the 85 percent goal we set for ourselves. And even for seasoned educational developers, it can be discouraging to see so little change after so much effort. But new tools offer hope. Ally recently announced planned updates to allow professors to remediate previously inaccessible PDFs directly in Blackboard without having to navigate to another platform. If reliable, this could make remediation more manageable, providing a solution at the point of need and lowering the activation energy required to solve the problem.

    We’re also considering:

    • Focus groups to better understand what motivates instructors to engage in this work.
    • Exploring the effectiveness of pop-up notifications that appear with accessibility tips and reminders when instructors log in to Blackboard to raise awareness and make the most of point-of-need supports.
    • Defining “reasonable measures” for compliance, especially for disciplines with unique content needs (e.g., organic chemistry, modern languages and linguistics).

    Leading With Empathy

    One unintended consequence we’ve seen: Some instructors are choosing to stop uploading digital content altogether. Faced with the complexity of digital accessibility requirements, they’re opting out rather than adapting. Although this could help our institutional compliance score, it’s often a net loss for students and for learning, so we want to find a path forward that doesn’t force instructors to make this kind of choice.

    Accessibility is about equity, but it’s also about empathy. As we move toward 2026, we need to support—not scare—instructors into compliance. Every step we make toward increased accessibility helps our students. Every instructor champion working with their peers to find context-specific solutions helps further our institutional goals. Progress over perfection might be the only sustainable path forward.

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